Ignoring certain communications can be extremely valuable. For instance, suppose a stakeholder moves the deadline a few weeks earlier, but the team of creators knows that it's completely unrealistic. To meet the deadline they need to stop doing things like writing automated tests or doing code reviews. They overrule the decision unless the stakeholder agrees to cut scope because they're unwilling to sacrifice quality. If a traditional manager role was in place they could simply overrule the group who does the actual creating and end up with bad output.

While that's certainly a problem case, I'd argue that it's rarer than creators taking as long to deliver a project as possible (why not, it's easier?). Which collapses down to the general communism/capitalism split for me (aka "Why does a person do a thing?").

If you apply processes that were designed for average or lowly motivated teams to highly self-motivated teams, you lose efficiency. But if you apply processes for highly self-motivated teams to other teams, equally bad things happen.

So the optimal solution is that employees need to be managed according to their individual needs. Some people need managers. Some people hate managers. If a company really wants efficiency, then they'll recognize both of these and cater to them differently.

Unfortunately, I think in the the real world the highly self-motivated individuals just get recognized as "talented" and pushed up into management themselves. Which is probably about the most terrible outcome. :\

> While that's certainly a problem case, I'd argue that it's rarer than creators taking as long to deliver a project as possible (why not, it's easier?).

My experiences might be unique, but I've never been part of a team that at any point preferred taking longer to finish something than necessary. Creators' pride is very much wrapped in how quickly they can deliver creations. So much so that it can be devastating to moral for a team of creators to miss a deadline. It's viewed at as a failure and a sign of incompetence, even if there were valid reasons for it happening.

I think the important distinction to be made is the type of creation that's happening. If you're an assembly line worker or a subway sandwich maker, your self-identity probably isn't tied to your job. If it takes you longer to make a sandwich or a widget than someone else but your compensation isn't affected, then you probably will take longer because it is, like you said, "easier".

If, however, your identity is very intimately tied to your creations, then you will care deeply about their quality and the efficiency with which you can create them. Perhaps the main problem is managers creating creators whose identities are tied to their creations like creators whose identities are detached from their creations. And with that distinction, I would agree with your statement that "employees need to be managed according to their individual needs."

I guess because we were talking about Zappos where I think I can safely assume the creators' identities are tied to their creations, which is why I wrote my original comment from that perspective.

> Unfortunately, I think in the the real world the highly self-motivated individuals just get recognized as "talented" and pushed up into management themselves. Which is probably about the most terrible outcome. :\

Absolutely, and I've seen it happen time and time again. Often those types of people aren't very good at managing people.